Anyone who has watched the Catholic Church
abuse narrative unfold in the media over the past several years has likely
encountered SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, a body
which bills itself as the “largest, oldest, and most active support group” for
clergy abuse victims. The organization has been quite successful in building
its presence and influence in the media, as journalists and writers often turn
to the group when seeking a voice critical of the Church for its handling of
abuse cases.

Barbara Blaine, a woman who claims to have
been abused by a priest as a teenager, founded SNAP in 1988. The group convened
its first meeting in 1991, and David Clohessy, a Missouri man who has also
claimed abuse by a priest, joined the group in a leadership role a year later.
Prior to joining SNAP,
Clohessy worked for nearly a decade for the now-disgraced, radical activist
group ACORN.

However, while SNAP’s stated mission is “to provide
support for men and women who have been sexually victimized by members of the
clergy,” the group’s leadership has allied itself with a progressive social
agenda and a full-scale assault on the teaching authority of the Catholic
Church.

The real agenda at play?

This past March in Washington, DC, SNAP
President Blaine appeared as a featured guest at a high-voltage conference
called “Women Money Power,” hosted by Feminist Majority, a very influential
pro-abortion lobbying group. At the conference Blaine was joined noted
activists Eleanor Smeal, Sandra Fluke, and Dawn Laguens (a vice president at
Planned Parenthood) for a panel discussion titled “Bishops, Politicians, and
the War on Women’s Health.”

The panelists took turns railing against
Catholic leaders for their positions on “reproductive freedom” (read:
contraception and abortion) and their opposition to the Obama administration’s
healthcare mandate. Needless to say, the venom in the room against the Catholic
Church was palpable.

Most notably, Blaine sat right next to Rev.
Barry Lynn, the well-traveled president of Americans United for the Separation
of Church and State whose progressive views have made him a fixture on cable
television talk shows.

Blaine must have really appreciated Rev.
Lynn’s talk (which can be viewed on
YouTube), because just a few months later he appeared as a headline
speaker at SNAP’s annual conference in Chicago. On that occasion, the energetic
Lynna minister in the United Church of Christsimply built upon his
Church-bashing speech from the Feminist Majority conference, claiming that
Catholic bishops have “no moral authority” to speak on women’s issues and human
sexuality and asserting that the Church’s opposition to the Department of
Health and Human Services’ contraception mandate was a “total fraud” and an “unimaginable
distortion of the very idea of freedom.” According to Lynn, the Church’s
objections to the HHS mandate were not really about religious liberty, but
about being given “special treatment” and the “power” to impose their religious
doctrine on others.

What did any of this have to do with the topic
of clergy sex abuse? Why did Blaine choose Lynn to speak at her conference?
They are good questions. Lynn made a brave attempt to tie the subject of clergy
abuse to his talk, but ultimately the issue served as little more than a vehicle
for a larger assault on the Catholic Church and advocacy for left-leaning
social policies.

Child abuse is “allowed” in the
Catholic Church?

Another speaker at SNAP’s Chicago conference
was author Judy Braun (she has also published under the names “Judy Brown” and
“Eishes Chayil,” which means “woman of valor”). In a wild presentation titled “Monotheism
and Child Sacrifice,” Braun argued that Jewish communities and the Catholic
Church view the sexual abuse of children as an acceptable form of child
sacrifice, with roots in the biblical story of Abraham and Isaac. Although Jews
and Catholics have been “sworn enemies” for 2,000 years, says Braun, “both
popes and rabbis are united in rare agreement that child sexual abuse is
allowed, as long as it is done in secret and its victims are buried deep under
the fear of God.”

According to Braun, child abuse is actually permitted in the Catholic Church. It was an alarming
premise, indeed, but SNAP conference attendees did not seem to have much of a
problem with it, and met Braun’s speech with affirming applause a number of
times, according to sources present.

Another dissident voice

Then there was Father Thomas Doyle, a favorite
at SNAP’s conferences. Doyle, a Dominican priest and canon lawyer, has a very
long record of dissent and animosity against the Church. He has appeared in
media venues such as NBC’s Dateline and
the 2006 documentary film Deliver Us From Evil to criticize the Catholic Church. SNAP has made Doyle a regular speaker at its
annual conferences, and the group awarded him its “Red Badge of Courage” award
in 2007.

Doyle also has a record of misrepresenting and belittling
the Church. He has degraded Catholic teaching as “childish, unrealistic
beliefs” and “magical thinking,” and he has described priestly vestments as
“dresses.” He once claimed that the Catholic Church is “the most corrupt
political entity on the globe. At least with the Nazis you knew what you were
dealing with.”

In his conference talk about the clergy
scandals, titled “1982 to 2012: Thirty years  What’s changed, and what hasn’t,”
Doyle aggressively attacked American bishops, claiming that bishops’ treatment
of abuse victims has gotten worse in recent years and asserting that bishops
exhibit a “disdain for the victims” by “slandering” them and seeking a
“semblance of superiority” over them.

Many may wonder why Doyle still remains a
priest, as he essentially acknowledged to the SNAP audience that he anything
but a Catholic. He said that he remains “legally a priest” for “a number of
reasons,” but that he has “nothing to do with the Catholic Church” and “nothing
to do with the clerical life.”

“I am not associated with the Church in any
way,” said Doyle, according to sources present at the conference. “I operate on
my own. My belief system is about as far away from the Vatican as you can get.”

SNAP claims it “does not hate
churches”

In a talk at the beginning of the conference,
SNAP’s National Director David Clohessy maintained that the group “does not
hate churches.” This statement is not very convincing, however, given the
politically charged, Church-bashing presentations from Lynn, Braun, Doyle, and
others. The group’s alliances with these individuals call SNAP’s motivations
into question.

As Catholics have read with horror about
criminal abuse and cover-ups committed decades ago by Church clergy, many have
asked themselves how they can provide support and compassion for the victims
who have experienced so much pain and suffering. Certainly the Gospels call
Catholics to reach out to those who have been so profoundly harmed by abusive
priests.

While SNAP remains the most prominent group
advocating for victims of clergy abuse, the group’s alliance with left-leaning
political causes and attacks on the Church itself may raise questions for
Catholics who would otherwise support the group’s efforts.

Let
us pray for the victims of abuse, and let us pray for our clergy.

About the Author

David F. Pierre, Jr.

David F. Pierre, Jr. is creator and author of TheMediaReport.com and has written two books: Catholic Priests Falsely Accused: The Facts, The Fraud, The Stories and Double Standard: Abuse Scandals and the Attack on the Catholic Church. He is a graduate of Boston College and lives with his wife and family in Massachusetts.

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